Tony-Winning Broadway Revival of Hair Recoups Investment

The Tony Award-winning revival of Broadway hit Hair has recouped its entire investment, producers announced on August 7. The musical, which opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on March 31, 2009, has made back its initial invesment of $5.76 million in roughly four months.

"The eagerness with which audiences have embraced Hair and its message of peace and change has been inspiring and enormously gratifying to all of us,” Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis said in a statement. “It pleases me to no end that we have recouped in an astonishingly short time, and we want to thank our partners and investors who believed in Hair and were willing to back it during the worst economic downturn of our lifetimes."

The successful revival, directed by Diane Paulus, began as a 40th anniversary concert presented by the Public Theater in September 2007. A full production opened to acclaim as part of the company's Shakespeare in the Park series in 2008 before being moved to Broadway in 2009. Hair has been grossing roughly $1 million or more per week over the past two months, bolstered in part by its Tony Award win for Best Revival in June 2009.

Hair features a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. With a score that includes enduring hits like "Let the Sun Shine In," "Aquarius," "Hair" and "Good Morning Starshine," the musical depicts the birth of a cultural movement in the '60s as told through a tribe of hopeful hippies living in New York City while war rages in Vietnam.